Having completed “Right Thing, Right Now” by Ryan Holiday (Amazon), I want to highlight a chapter that stood out: “You Just Have to Be Kind”

As Kurt Vonnegut said, “There’s only one rule that I know of: Goddamn it, Joe, you’ve got to be kind.””

Be kind.

• To the ones who serve you.
• To the ones who frustrate you.
• To those who falter, those who fall.
• To the ones who follow you and the ones who came before.
• To the ones you may never meet.

The history is filled with brilliant and successful people. You’ve probably encountered plenty. But how many truly kind people have you met? When we look back, one thing that never ages well is a lack of kindness. 

The cruelty of mobs. The selfishness of leaders. The way whole groups of people were dismissed, diminished, denied their humanity.

It’s true: There is no leader who has not faced frustration.
There is no wise person who has not endured foolishness.
There is no good person who has not been wronged.

This is the way of the world.

But it is our strength, our wisdom, our decency that obligates us to be kind anyway. 

You never know what someone is carrying. You never know how far a small kindness might ripple. But that’s not why we do it.

We do it because as Vonnegut puts it, it’s the only goddamn rule there is.

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